For most elected officials, likes and shares on Twitter hard to come by: study

WASHINGTON — Social media was supposed to be the great equalizer, but a new study suggests that most elected officials in Canada, the United States and elsewhere are struggling to connect with people on Twitter.

The study from Pew Research Center finds that among rank-and-file federal legislators in five countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, 25 per cent of active tweeters produced 65 per cent of the content.

In Canada, MPs on Twitter generated a median of 48 tweets per month over the course of the study, which was conducted during the first half of 2019, but attracted a median of just five “likes” and one retweet per month.

Of those, the 25 per cent most active users of the platform received 80 per cent of likes and retweets.

Lawmakers in the U.S., the most active group of the five countries studied, had monthly medians of 79 tweets, 18 likes and five retweets.

Across the board, heads of state and party leaders — whose own accounts were excluded from the study — received the most mentions, with President Donald Trump leading in the U.S. and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Canada.

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